Yesterday he did the grimmest duty a president has, made grimmer in this case by the fact that the evacuation in which 13 Americans were killed was handled so incompetently. If the process for getting U.S. citizens and Afghan friendlies to safety had begun months ago, as some groups had advocated, there may never have been a bomber at the airport gate.

Biden can and will say that he insisted upon withdrawal precisely because we’ve had too many ceremonies like this one at Dover in the past 20 years. He didn’t want any more.

But try using that logic to ease the pain of a mother or widow of a soldier who was killed in a botched retreat.

President Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, @SecDef Austin and others participate in dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base of 13 service members killed in Afghanistan.

(Note: Video has no audio) pic.twitter.com/s7EOMCGEXz

— CSPAN (@cspan) August 29, 2021

The grief of some family members who attended the ceremony was overwhelming, as you might expect. Loud sobbing could be heard and one woman ended up collapsing.

Biden made some time to meet with the families beforehand but not all chose to attend, whether because of grief, rage at the administration’s negligence, political differences in an era of bitter partisan division, or some combination of the three. For instance, the father of fallen Marine Kareem Nikoui criticized Biden on Friday for “turning his back” on his son and told the Daily Beast that he’s a Trump voter “who really believed [Trump] didn’t want to send people into harm’s way.” Again, Biden would say, “I don’t either, which is why we’re leaving,” but that’s a cold comfort to a father who’s just lost his boy. According to WaPo, the family of Rylee McCollum attended the Dover ceremony but some couldn’t bear to greet Biden — and the one family member who did was underwhelmed:

One of McCollum’s sisters, Roice, said she and her sister and her father joined McCollum’s wife, Jiennah McCollum, on the trip. But when it came time to meet with the president, they left the room, because she said they did not want to speak with the man they held responsible for McCollum’s death.

Only Jiennah, who is expecting the couple’s child next month, stayed. But she left disappointed, Roice said. The president brought up his son, Beau, according to her account, describing his son’s military service and subsequent death from cancer. It struck the family as scripted and shallow, a conversation that lasted only a couple of minutes in “total disregard to the loss of our Marine,” Roice said.

“You can’t f— up as bad as he did and say you’re sorry,” Roice said of the president. “This did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands.”

Empathy is normally Biden’s strong suit but it was in strangely short supply in the first days after Kabul fell. Maybe he showed Jiennah McCollum some genuine feeling and was dismissed anyway because she understandably bore him a grudge.

Or maybe not:

Biden appears to check his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base. pic.twitter.com/oMsBefnmfS

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 29, 2021

Either way, you need to read this from the fallen Marines’ CO to appreciate their sacrifice. They were busy saving lives when they were attacked:

There’s a photo of Marines pulling people out of the canal here that shows just how close they would have been to the bomber when he detonated.

I’ll leave you with this interview with McCollum’s mother from over the weekend, in which she blamed her son’s death on the fact that “that feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap … decided he wanted a photo-op on September 11th.” I’m going to guess that her dislike for Biden didn’t begin within the last few days. By the way, there’s a GoFundMe for McCollum’s unborn child here if you’d like to donate. The initial goal was $5,000. They’re at $423,000 and counting as I write this.